[2] He began playing the guitar at the age of fourteen, being influenced by the music of Queen, Thin Lizzy, the Who, Aerosmith, Blue Öyster Cult, and the early work of Led Zeppelin.

He started playing lead guitar with a number of different punk rock acts whilst still in school in the late 1970s, including the Studio Sweethearts.

[3] After leaving school, Duffy left Manchester when the Studio Sweethearts moved to London, working as a shop assistant at Johnsons in the King's Road.

The Studio Sweethearts subsequently broke up and Duffy began playing lead guitar part-time with the band Theatre of Hate.

The Cult reached a larger, mainstream audience, but the public's attention could not be sustained with their next album, Ceremony, at the dawn of the grunge age.

This was capped off by a show at Atlanta's Music Midtown Festival in May 2001, where over 60,000 people watched them perform, leading up to the release of Beyond Good and Evil.

In early 2004, Duffy formed the covers band Cardboard Vampyres alongside Alice in Chains guitarist/vocalist Jerry Cantrell.

Also in the band were Mötley Crüe and Ratt vocalist John Corabi, the Cult bassist Chris Wyse and drummer Josh Howser.

In an October 2016 interview with PopMatters journalist J.C. Maçek III, Duffy spoke about his favorite Cult song, saying "Jonesy [former Sex Pistols guitarist turned radio host Steve Jones] on Jonesy's Jukebox just played 'Love' from the Love album and that's my favorite Cult song," he tells me proudly.

[11] In the 2017 feature film England Is Mine, a biopic about the early years of Morrissey, Duffy is portrayed by Adam Lawrence.